Wednesday, 22 April 2015

Election surprise in north (The Cyprus Weekly, 18 April 2015)

By Esra Aygin

As Turkish Cypriots are preparing to go to polls to elect a
leader and the debate is getting ever the more heated, one thing there is broad
consensus on is the fact that it is impossible to predict who will come out of
the ballot box this Sunday.

The developments in an unprecedented elections period in the
northern part of Cyprus over the last months have unfolded in such a way that current
Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu, current “parliament speaker” Sibel Siber
and veteran politician Mustafa Akıncı seem to have almost equal chances of
coming out as the winner. And the star of independent candidate and former
chief negotiator Kudret Özersay is shooting at such speeds that, he is already
clearly one of the winners, no matter what the result is.

None of the candidates are expected to get more than 50 per
cent of votes required to win the elections in the first round this Sunday. Next
Sunday, 26 April, the second round of the elections will be held, where the two
candidates with the most votes will run against each other. And it seems
impossible to predict who those two will be.

One of the biggest surprises of the election period has been
the very clear decline of the current Turkish Cypriot leader, Eroğlu. Despite
the fact that the two major right wing parties, National Unity Party UBP and
Serdar Denktaş’ Democratic Party DP officially declared support for Eroğlu,
there is a significant number of people in both parties, who harshly oppose him
mostly due to personal inter-party disputes. The perception at the onset of the
process was that hardliner Eroğlu would win the election in the first round,
and his campaigners were toying with the slogan, “55 per cent is the target.”
Although he is still topping the polls, it is clear that Eroğlu is in for a
very narrow race that will definitely not end in the first round. It is even
being questioned whether or not he would be one of the two candidates, who get
enough votes to go to the second round.

“Let alone winning in the first round, getting around 30 per
cent and being able to go up to the second round will be perceived as a success
for Eroğlu,” wrote Başaran Düzgün, the General Manager of the liberal,
pro-solution Havadis newspaper on Tuesday.

The main destination of the right-wing voters despising Eroğlu
is Özersay - the other big surprise of the election period. Özersay, a young
professor of international relations and the leader of the civil society
initiative “Toparlanıyoruz” (‘we are pulling ourselves together’) movement, entered
the race back in October 2014 with no significant power, party or organization
backing him up. Commentators and polls gave Özersay no more than 5 per cent of
the ballots at the polls. However, his completely unforeseeable and swift rise in
a matter of just six months, has now made him a huge challenge for his
competitors with the possibility of garnering up to 20 percent of the votes. It
would not be a surprise for those following the process closely, if Özersay wins
enough votes to go on to the second round.

“Everyone thought he would remain at three-five per cent but
support for Özersay increased unbelievably. There is a huge flow towards
Özersay mainly from UBP and DP,” said Düzgün.

The main message of Özersay’s “Toparlanıyoruz” movement has
been a call for clean politics and clean society. Özersay has consistently kept
on the same line throughout his candidacy, criticizing the corrupt and
ineffective system in the north and promising a reformation and cleanup, and an
end to partisanship and nepotism.

On the negotiations front, he has highlighted his knowledge
and experience stemming from the fact that he has been involved in the Cyprus
talks for the last 12 years working with all three Turkish Cypriot leaders,
late Rauf Denktaş, Mehmet Ali Talat, and Eroğlu. While promising to work for a
federal solution, he has argued that Turkish Cypriots should not pin all their
hopes on a solution but should focus on correcting every aspect of their life
regardless of the conditions.

Working with a team of volunteers, Özersay has been able to
garner the support of circles across the political spectrum - people from left to
right, from the extreme nationalist to the liberal pro-solution, from
businessmen to Turkish settler groups, who are fed up with the system, the same
politicians, undelivered promises, political parties and corruption.

The fact that the voting patterns of Turkish Cypriots this
time around have almost nothing to do with party affiliations and allegiances
makes it ever more impossible to predict the outcome of the elections. A
significant part of the traditional voter base of UBP and DP are going mainly
for Özersay, but also Siber - the candidate of the Republican Turkish Party –
United Forces CTP – BG, and Akıncı - independent candidate backed by the
Socialist Democracy Party and United Cyprus Party BKP. A significant part of
the traditional supporters of CTP, on the other hand, have not been able to
internalize Siber -who is not from the grassroots of CTP - are going for
Akıncı.

So, in probably the most interesting election in the Turkish
Cypriot political history, it would be fair to say any result is possible on
Sunday.

As Düzgün said, “These elections are taking place on a very
slippery ground. We are trying to read the process through traditional analysis
methods, which don’t work in this case. Nothing is as it was before.”